


scary monsters and super creeps

by sarahxxxlovey



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, Surprises, The Byers move away, post ST3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-14 23:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21023819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahxxxlovey/pseuds/sarahxxxlovey
Summary: "She tossed and turned, staring at the ceiling. By the time the sun came up, she’d made up her mind: she was going to see the Byers."





	scary monsters and super creeps

The phone rang, rattling on its hook next to her head.

At that moment, Nancy Wheeler was infinitely grateful that every month a part of her limited income went to her parents so that she could have her own private telephone line in her room.

She didn’t want to think about the amount of time Mike spent on it, using her minutes to talk to El into the late hours of the night when the long-distance call charge was lower and then getting kicked off when Nancy got home from work or hanging out with her friends.

It also made it a lot easier to receive late-night phone calls in secret. 

“Hello?” she answered into the phone, her voice betraying her grogginess as she tried to check the time on the clock next to her bed in the dim light.

“Nancy?” a slightly slurred answer came. 

She sat up straighter, blinking rapidly as her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness. “Jonathan!” 

“Yeah,” he coughed, his voice rough and raw, “yeah, it’s me.” 

She was instantly more awake, squinting at the time.

1:47 am.

On a Thursday night. 

There was a faint bassline in the background coming through the phone, barely audible over all the ambient noise coming in through the receiver. _ He must be out, _she thought to herself. Out at a bar with a fake ID that his friends she didn’t know had gotten him a couple of months after he moved there. 

It used to be that when he was having a rough night she’d know because she’d hear a gentle three taps on her window, a warning that someone was about to enter. Thoughts used to run around her head that she probably shouldn’t leave her window unlocked all the time, but then Jonathan would slide into bed with her and they’d try to forget all the ways that they’d been haunted that night and it seemed much less important to worry about another thing than it did to enjoy something good in her life. 

But now, he had a whole life in another city without her now, had a whole other life that she wasn’t a part of. A whole calendar of events and tasks that didn’t involve homework dates and monster hunting.

At least she hoped they didn’t.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly. The pieces had already clicked in her head that he probably wasn’t okay, calling her at two in the morning.

“I don’t know,” he muttered miserably. 

“Jonathan—” 

“I…” he stuttered, his voice cracking suddenly, “Fuck, I just miss you, Nancy.” 

She squeezed her eyes shut and attempted to swallow the lump in her throat. 

It was like he knew that she had been struggling today too, barely making it through her classes without looking out the window, seeing the spot that they used to study or passing by the darkroom and wanting to knock and see if he was in there. 

But he wasn’t. He was in another state, miles and miles away, calling her drunk from a bar. 

“I miss you too,” she replied, trying to keep the tears out of her voice, the months piling on her. “A lot.” 

“How many days until Christmas and I get you for two weeks?” he chuckled darkly, slightly drowned out by all the noise behind him, by a few people having a conversation right near him she guessed.

“We’ve already done the hard part,” she said, taking a deep breath, desperately looking for anything that would calm her. “Only a few more weeks until we’re together again.” 

“Seems longer than that,” he admitted. “Too long.” 

It did seem like a long time. Too long that she could hardly remember what it was like to be with him. So long that she had developed habits. 

She wrote him letters a few times a week, telling him about her day, sometimes in a sappy love note where she felt corny enough to put hearts over her “i’s” and sometimes journalistically styled writing, factual, logical, precise. He had left her with a Polaroid camera and sometimes she snapped a pic to slip into the envelope, at the pool with Holly and sticking their tongues out at the camera or late at night in bed with messy hair and her pajamas on. 

Even more often, she tried to picture him. If she closed her eyes tightly enough, she could see him, dressed in dark clothes, one arm over his head as he leaned it against the wall next to the payphone in whatever dive he was in. There was music playing, the kind that he liked. He was probably wearing the same sneakers that he bought over and over and the jeans that she’d given him last summer and a worn, soft tee shirt and his jacket.

She tried to imagine what he was feeling. He was probably in his own head by this point, even if he was with his friends. Homesick. Lonely, probably. Scared? Unsure of himself maybe.

“Jonathan?” 

“Yeah,” he sniffled. She could picture him rubbing the elbow of his jacket against his eyes, hastily wiping tears away.

“Can you do something for me?” 

He laughed wetly. “Anything.” 

“Look down at your hand.” The phone rustled and she felt the need to clarify. “The left one.” 

His left hand was always the one he used to tap on the steering wheel along with the rock music he blasted and the thought of cruising in his beat-up old Ford Galaxie during the warm summer months felt like decades ago, another lifetime perhaps.

“Okay,” he breathed, his voice shaky.

She adjusted herself in bed, the phone held between her shoulder and her head.

“You looking at your hand?” 

“Yeah.” His voice sounded calmer. 

“There’s a saying,” she started, clearing her throat and running her finger along the scar on her palm, “that no matter where you are, if we both look out our windows at night, we’re looking at the same moon.”

“Romantic,” Jonathan said with a bitterness in his voice that Nancy was desperate to wipe away.

“I think…” she started then chuckled. “I think these scars are kind of like our version.”

“A little dark for you, Nance,” he replied quickly, a little happy inflection at the end, and her heart ached with how she missed him, how just the tone of his voice made her see his small smile, his bottom lip in his mouth as his eyes sparkled. His wit and his gentle sarcasm and the way that his jokes made her stomach feel like she was on a rollercoaster. 

She wanted to hear a full smile, to picture the expression taking over all his face. 

“The moon is bullshit,” she said resolutely.

“I think the moon would disagree,” he said, and she could hear it, the grin in his voice. 

“Jonathan,” she sighed halfheartedly, holding back a laugh. “It’s a metaphor.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she said, tracing the cut on her skin again. “We’re always connected wherever we are because of these dumb scars we got as stupid teenagers.”

“Ah, well I hate to break it to you, but we’re still stupid teenagers,” he said, his tone heavy again. “A good attempt at a powerful metaphor, Nancy Wheeler.”

There it was again, the distance hanging in between them. She knew he wasn’t being sarcastic, that he actually appreciated the way that he was trying to cheer her up but he was just out of reach for her, just too far away to really make an impact on. 

She missed when she could reach out and touch him. What had life been when she’d woken up next to him almost every morning? When she only had to wait a couple of hours to kiss him, when she could sneak up behind him while he was cooking or developing photos and wrap her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder? 

“Are you okay?” she asked again, not sure what to ask but wanting to hear his voice. 

“I will be,” he said softly. She gripped the phone closer to her ear, hoping that his voice would drown everything else out if she listened hard enough. If she just focused hard enough she could do anything.

“The distance… it’s just one more thing out of all the shit we’ve been through,” she tried, convincing herself of it. “We’re going to be okay, Jonathan.”

“I know we are,” he said, desperation tinging the edges of his voice.

“You do?” 

“Yeah.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah,” he said. 

There were words he wanted to say, words she could hear hanging after the end of the sentence and she let it hang there, waiting for him to hop in with what he wanted to say.

“What if we go to different colleges?” he finally said.

The thought ripped a hole in Nancy’s heart in a split second, even the thought of four more years of this, of distance and tears and late-night calls, of uncertainty and loneliness and separation. She bit her bottom lip to try to hold back a sob and breathed out as quietly as she could through her nose.

“It’ll be okay,” she choked out.

“Shit,” he said, wrestling with the phone, “No, shit, Nancy, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I know,” she said, blowing out through her mouth silently. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he insisted softly.

“I’m still sorry,” she sniffled, her heart breaking with every moment. 

“Me too,” he said.

“I’m really sorry,” she breathed, feeling the small cracks in her heart splinter a little more.

“Me too,” he repeated, his voice shaky. 

_ How many times would they apologize about the miles in between them? _She turned onto her side and curled up into herself.

“I love you, Jonathan,” she whispered.

“I love you so much,” he said back instantly, like he knew what she was going to say before she said it. “I love you _ so _ much.”

“Are you going to be okay?” She asked quietly, delicately. “As in… are you going to get home alright?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m drunk, but not that drunk and definitely not incapacitated.”

“Okay,” she sighed with relief. 

“I’ve dealt with worse,” he teased lightly. 

She took a deep breath and wrapped the cord of the phone around her finger, trying to slow her heartbeat and steady her breathing.

“That’s not exactly reassuring,” she pointed out.

“What’s one more thing?” he said, the memory of the last time she saw him overwhelming her, the dust hanging in the air around them in his empty childhood bedroom as he pulled her close.

There was a moment of pause and she wondered how much she was paying for this minute right here in the early hours of the morning, her boyfriend crying in a bar hundreds of miles away.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the one with the good pep talks?” she laughed softly, feeling slightly hollow.

“Off day, I guess.”

“Off night, you mean,” she corrected.

“It’s morning, technically,” he laughed, empty and sad to her ears. 

“At least the rates are lower at this time of night or morning or whatever it is,” she admitted.

“I… I love you, Nancy,” he said and she tried to let the words fill her up from head to toe, the way they had made her feel when he’d said it for the first time, the way their hands fit together so perfectly.

“I love you, Jonathan,” she said, blinking back tears.

* * *

She sat in bed hours later, wide awake, watching the trees cast shadows on her ceiling. 

She and Mike had Monday off of school and Friday had turned into a teacher workday too, leaving them with a four day weekend and if anything, she wished that she had school to distract her from the million thoughts racing in her head as she lay awake and the sun came up.

She took a deep breath and turned towards her bedside table again, back towards the picture of Barb.

So many months ago, years ago now, Jonathan had laid next to her in bed, dressed in all black in the middle of her pastel bedroom as she shivered and pulled the covers tighter around herself. 

Another sleepless night she’d had then, tossing and turning with all the possibilities of the shadows, shadows that turned into faceless men, faceless dogs, people with black eyes melting and going down the sewers.

That night, asking him to lie next to her while they slept, it felt like a million years ago. Back then, she still held hope that Barb was alive and even more unbelievable, Will was still missing. The reality of Barb being gone had faded to a dull ache at the back of her heart, but the possibility of Will being gone was still like a shock to her system.

It was before she knew El and before Jonathan knew the girl who was now his sister for all intents and purposes. It was before Billy and Max had moved to town, before Murray had given her a bottle of vodka and told her to share the damn bed, before Dr. Owens had taken them on a tour of the lab, before Bob had sacrificed his life so that they could go on, before Tom tried to kill them in that hospital.

At that point, Jonathan Byers hadn’t beaten Steve Harrington in a fight and she had never touched a gun, didn’t know how good of a shot she was. She hadn’t heard about Lonnie or how Jonathan had learned to throw a punch. They barely knew each other back then, and since then they’d lived a thousand lives. He had pulled her out of the upside down, dragged her away from a monster and lit it on fire, helped her get the thing out of Will, held her as she sobbed with relief in the front seat of his car after Barb’s funeral, fought the Mindflayer tooth and nail, screaming her name and then asking and begging her to be okay, dug a sterilized knife into El’s leg when he needed to. He’d done more for her and his family and their friends than she could ever have imagined, more than she ever wanted to imagine.

She could feel herself falling into a desperate need for Jonathan and the stability he provided for her. She wanted to get on Mike’s bike and ride to the Byers’, throwing a change of clothes into her bag and pedaling as fast as she could down the road to their house, feeling the wind whip in her hair. The anticipation of getting to see him again beating harshly in her chest, leaving her almost as breathless as the exercise was. 

But it wouldn’t be the same even if she made it all the way there tonight, the moon urging her on and the trees whispering “faster” in her ear. She would get there to an empty house or a new family would be living there and everything in her would be crushed like the leaves under the tires of the stolen bike. The carpet stained with supernatural blood and the broken phone and the windows had all been replaced before they sold the house and part of her family had been replaced. 

She hadn’t been able to bring herself to go back there and as long as Jonathan wasn’t next to her, she didn’t think she’d have the strength.

She tossed and turned, the shadows on the ceiling taunting her as the minute hand on the clock ticked by slowly, slowly, slowly. 

By the time the sun came up, she’d made up her mind. 

* * *

Nancy knocked on Mike’s bedroom door at 10 am the next morning, leaning against the frame when he opened it a few moments later, his eyes sleepy and his mouth ready to yell at her. 

“I want to go see the Byers,” she said before he could get a word out. His eyes widened and his mouth opened as he began to sputter.

“Can I—”

“Duh, of course,” she said, turning on her heel to walk downstairs. She turned back to see him still standing in his doorway, mouth agape. “Are you helping me convince Mom or not?” 

He snapped out of it and slammed his door shut as he rushed down the stairs in front of her, grinning so wildly that she couldn’t help but match it.

* * *

“_Please,_ Mom,” she said, “I promise I’ll look after Mike and El.”

“To be frank, honey,” Karen said, opening the fridge to put the milk back in. “I think Mike has just as much business looking after you and Jonathan as you do looking after him and El.”

“Oh my god,” Nancy replied with an eye roll as her brother sniggered. She glared at him. “Do you even _ want _ to go or not?”

He swallowed and put on a serious face, nodding quickly and turning back to their mom with a pleasing look.

“Please, Mom, _ please, _” Mike begged. 

“We’ll be out of your hair for three whole days,” Nancy tried.

“We’ll be like, _ way _ less moody when we get back,” Mike goaded. 

“Please, Mom! I promise we’ll be good and I know Mike can get into trouble but I’ll pay for gas and I’ll look after him and—”

“It’s a win-win-win because I’ll be happy and Nancy will be happy and you’ll be happy because all you really want is for your kids to be happy and—”

“Mom, c’mon—”

“Please—”

“Okay!” Karen interjected, her hands up in surrender as she sighed. “_Okay._ You can go.” 

“And…” Nancy started, unsure of how to ask for the car. 

“You can take the Mercury,” Karen said, a smile crinkling the corner of her eyes. “But I expect you to take care of that care and of each other and _ most importantly,_ make good choices.”

“Naturally,” Nancy said, trying to contain the bubbling joy inside her.

“Of course,” Mike scoffed. 

Nancy and Mike grinned at each other.

* * *

Nancy packed the car while Mike called Joyce, telling her of their plans to surprise their friends, and then the two of them packed their bags in record time. She threw her hot rollers into a bag with some dresses, heels, sneakers, and jeans, grabbing a couple of Jonathan’s tee shirts and throwing those in for good measure too. She nearly forgot pajamas until she didn’t and moments later they were shoved in the corner of her duffle bag with her underwear and her walkman and a handful of cassettes.

She was 99% sure that Mike had stolen a box of Eggos from the freezer to bring to El, but she wasn’t about to comment on it. 

They filled up the tank halfway through the trip, the car guzzling a crisp 20 dollar bill, one of the last ones Nancy had on her but Mike said he had brought some cash too, saved up from babysitting the boys down the street and helping Lucas mowing lawns. 

She rolled the windows up when it started raining and she turned the music up soon after, jamming, barely on beat with the Talking Heads and Bowie as they cruised along the highway.

“What’s this tape?” Mike asked with a tone of mild disgust as he looked at the map in his lap, tracing their path with a pencil.

“Jonathan made it for me,” she replied defensively. 

“No wonder it’s so depressing,” he laughed, turning to look out the window. 

“Hey!” she exclaimed, his laughter a little bit contagious. “Do you want to walk to see Will and El or would you rather stay in this car?”

“Sorry,” he laughed, completely not sorry and she wondered how there was ever a time when it felt like a burden for him to be next to her in the front seat.

There were a few moments of silence between them and Nancy couldn’t help but take the bait.

“At least I’m not listening to Corey Hart,” she said, hiding her smile, turning to Mike to watch his reaction. 

“How do you know about that?” he shouted, his eyes wide and his face bright red.

“You don’t want me to put on your makeout playlist?” she teased, her facade of cool disappearing behind giggles.

“_Nancy_!”

Nancy laughed until tears streamed from her eyes as Indiana disappeared behind them. 

* * *

They stopped at a payphone on the side of the road a couple of miles from the Byers’ to call Joyce. She snuck the two of them in through the back door, hiding them behind the house until she was sure that El and Will weren’t going to see them. 

“I’m going to call Will out here first, okay?” Joyce said, whispering just loud enough that they could hear her. “Then Will can call El out. It’ll be less suspicious that way.”

Next to Nancy, Mike was bouncing nervously as he nodded. Nancy felt like laughing at how excited she was and wondered if she’d have the same reaction once Jonathan was finally home from work.

“They’re going to be excited to see you,” Nancy whispered to Mike and he grinned.

“Will, can you come out here please?” Joyce called, practically buzzing with excitement.

“I’m busy!” his bodiless voice replied from down the hall.

“Will! Living room!” Joyce said it with a firm tone but the second the words were out of her mouth, she was back to grinning, hiding her smile behind her hands.

Will came down the hall and Nancy swore he was another inch taller than he was when she saw him a few months ago.

“What the—” was all he got out before Mike launched himself against his friend.

They tumbled to the ground in a heap of adolescence and Nancy felt herself getting emotional, her brother and his best friend getting to live their lives like they were supposed to. 

“What are you _ doing _ here?” Will exclaimed, wrestling them back up to standing.

“Will?” El’s timid voice called from down the hall. 

“Come out here, El!” Will called excitedly. 

“Why?” El responded back, coming around the corner in a wildly patterned shirt tucked into a loose pair of shorts. Her jaw dropped and she walked slowly towards the grinning Mike and Will, their arms still around each other's shoulders. 

“Hi, El,” Mike said, bouncing on his feet.

“Mike,” she cried as she wrapped her arms around both of the boys and leaned into his shoulder as the two boys pulled her close.

“Hi,” he repeated, hugging her tightly to him.

As soon as the three of them were together, it was like no time had passed, running back to Will’s room and talking rapidly with slang Nancy barely understood. It sunk a hole in her heart, desperately hoping that it would be like that with her and Jonathan too. 

* * *

Nancy knew that Jonathan was at work and wouldn’t be due back for a couple of hours after they’d arrived. She also knew that he’d be mad when he realized that they could’ve had a couple more hours together if she’d called him and told him to get off early. 

But she didn’t care. Looking at the house, knowing the area, seeing the extra person they had to feed and clothe now, she assumed that he probably needed the money. Plus she had more time to snoop around his room.

It was weird to be there, weird because Jonathan wasn’t there and it felt like spying to be in a place they’d never been together, but weird also because it was both similar and so different than his old room. 

A desk sat in one corner and his bed in another and a pile of laundry spilled out from behind the sliding closet doors. She wondered if he would’ve cleaned it up if he’d known she was coming. He still had band posters up, but more of the bands that he listened to now and less of the ones he listened to when they’d first started dating. Her eyes fell on his sound system, his records placed carefully into neat little cubbies and she thought it must be the only truly organized thing in his room, his music and his photos. 

He had actual curtains now, hanging neatly over the windows in a way that made her feel like an outsider, like things were similar, but just different enough to make her feel a little weird. 

She walked over to the desk, running her fingers along the items there. A calculus textbook with pieces of paper sticking out of it, pages folded down with pencil marks lining its pages. There was a long shelf running along the wall above the desk, littered with cameras and unopened boxes of film. 

She sat down in the desk chair and spun around a few times, wondering what he’d done with the green chair that used to sit in the corner of his room, whether it had ended up at a thrift store or on the side of the road with a free sign attached.

While she spun, something out of place caught her eye. 

On his bedside table, on top of the magazines and books, was a cigar box. It didn't fit; Jonathan didn’t smoke cigars and neither did anyone else in the house. Hopper and Joyce used to sneak cigarettes, but she can’t remember a single time that either of them had come home smelling like cigars. 

She went over, looking over her shoulder quickly to make sure nobody was walking past the cracked door and slowly opened the lid. 

Looking up at her was herself. 

She smiled, pulling a stack of her polaroid photos out of the box, running her fingers over them and realizing there was a pile of her letters underneath the photos, each carefully tucked behind the other. It seemed never-ending, the pile of letters and at the bottom were the movie tickets on the first date they’d ever gone on. 

She swallowed thickly and placed the photos back in the box, closing the lid gently and wiping at her eyes.

The clock next to the box said 3:58 pm and she knew that he was due home soon. 

She kicked her shoes off and slid up on his bed, stealing his copy of Slaughterhouse-Five and perching herself against his pillows, willing herself to get lost in the book and not focus on the clock for another minute. 

A few minutes later, 4:03 the clock said, the front door opened and she heard Jonathan’s voice call to his mom. Her heart pounded in her chest and she felt mildly like she might throw up. His footsteps echoed down the hallway and he pushed the door open as he fiddled with his car keys and wallet. 

His back was to her as he fiddled with pulling his car keys and wallet out of his pockets, throwing his backpack down on the desk.

He hadn’t noticed her yet. 

She took a deep breath and butterflies bubbled in her stomach, fully aware that she was about to both scare him and delight him.

“Hey, stranger,” she said, immediately swallowing when her voice felt thick in her throat. 

“Hey,” he said absentmindedly and then paused, his head rising slowly as he digested whose voice it was and where it was coming from. 

He turned to her and when he did, his eyes were wide and full of disbelief. 

“Nancy?” he said incredulously. 

“Hi,” she said, biting her bottom lip as she tried to hide her glee. 

In a moment he was on top of her, kissing her neck and laughing against her skin. 

“What… the _hell_ are you doing here?” he laughed, lying on top of her and wrapping his arms around her.

“Just came to say hello,” she all but giggled, catching his lips against hers and kissing him firmly until his laughter broke it up. 

“What the hell is going on?” he repeated rhetorically, clutching onto the back of her shirt as his mouth rested against her skin. 

She pressed after kiss to his temple, running her fingers through his hair, wondering if he could feel how quickly her heart was beating. 

A large part of her couldn’t believe that he was in her arms, his breath on her cheek, his voice in her ear, their fingers intertwined in between their bodies, legs tangled up down the bed.

“I missed you,” she said after a few moments of just soaking it in, the emotion catching at the back of her throat as she spoke. He nodded against her and his shoulders shook slightly.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said with a sniffle against her neck, burrowing his face further into her skin. 

“Are you crying?” she asked incredulously, tugging on her hair gently until he leaned so she could see his face.

“It was a big surprise,” he defended with a chuckle, wiping at his eyes and snuggling back into her with a content sigh.

“Well I know, but I didn’t expect you to cry,” she said softly, scratching her fingernails against his scalp gently. He all but purred and adjusted to hold her a little tighter.

“And I didn’t expect you to be sitting on my bed when I got home from work,” he laughed.

“I suppose that’d shock me a fair bit too,” she admitted, studying his face.

He chuckled. “I still just can’t believe you’re here.” 

“Me either,” she admitted. “It feels a little bit like a dream.”

He readjusted himself, pulling himself up the bed so their heads were next to each other on the pillow.

“How did you get here?” he asked curiously as he brushed some hair out of her eyes. 

“My mom let me take the wagon,” she admitted, feeling slightly childish for it, borrowing her mom’s car to go visit her highschool sweetheart.

“I’m glad she did,” he said softly, running a hand down her arm and intertwining their fingers, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand.

“Me too,” she whispered as he leaned in to kiss her. 

* * *

“Boisterous?” 

El squeezed her eyes shut with focus. “Loud?” 

“Yeah. Loud, rowdy,” Nancy replied as she flipped to the next card. “Good job.”

The two of them sat on the front porch on a swinging bench, waiting for the boys to come back from the grocery store with a couple of pints of ice cream and a few boxes of popsicles as they went over some of El’s vocabulary words of the week, Joyce’s attempt to get her on track before Christmas.

“Deteriorate?” 

“Get worse,” El said quickly, the answer on the tip of her tongue before she looked down at her lap where her hands were resting, flexing her fingers gently with a faraway look in her eye.

“Yeah, well done,” Nancy said, feeling a tinge of awkwardness over the moment. 

“Thanks,” El replied softly.

Nancy watched El looking down at her lap, thinking of all the times that they’d all been saved them with her powers, with a flex of her wrist. 

“El?” 

“Yes?”

“How are your powers?” Nancy asked softly, curiosity winning over her desire to not make El feel uncomfortable.

“Gone,” El replied sadly, swallowing thickly. 

“I’m sure they’ll come back,” Nancy replied, dragging her toes against the wood of the porch to slow down the movement of the swing. 

“You sound like Mike,” El said softly like she was holding a secret to herself. 

“Is that a bad thing?” Nancy teased. 

“No,” El admitted with a small smile, her eyes flicking to Nancy before she blushed. “I love Mike.”

Nancy blinked. 

“You love him?” 

“Yes,” the younger girl admitted, playing with a string hanging off her turquoise shorts, her bottom lip in her mouth sheepishly.

“Well…” Nancy began, trying to think of how to proceed before a smile broke out over her face, turning to face El a little more fully. “He loves you too, I think.” 

“I know,” she giggled, pulling her feet up on the bench and wrapping her arms around her knees. 

“He’s told you that?” Nancy asked, enjoying the moment of having a look into her brother’s relationship. 

“Sort of,” El admitted shyly, looking up at Nancy. “Do you and Jonathan say it?”

“Oh yeah,” Nancy said, pushing a little harder this time to swing them a bit more. “We… yeah.”

“You love him too, then?” El asked, looking at her curiously. 

“Yeah,” Nancy replied with a smile. 

“Good,” El said resolutely, picking the cards up from the bench and flipping through them again. “He’s like my brother now.” 

Nancy nodded, staring down at where her shoe was untied. “Yeah, I suppose he is.”

El looked at her like she was scared to ask something. 

“Does that…” she said timidly. “Does that make us kind of like sisters?”

Nancy laughed. “In a way, yeah. I suppose it does.” 

“Brothers are good,” El said shyly, hiding a smile again, “but I’ve always wanted another sister. One like Kali but… close. Closer.” 

The sound of a car clunking into the driveway pulled them out of the conversation and in a moment the boys were out of the car, Mike and Will tripping over each other as they ran over to the front porch with grocery bags filled with snacks. 

Nancy skipped down at pecked Jonathan on the lips, giving him a knowing look. “I thought you were just getting ice cream?”

He smiled and shrugged, putting his arm around her and pressing a kiss to her temple. “Hard to say no to Will sometimes. He’s surprisingly manipulative.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Nancy teasingly agreed. 

“You have an okay time without me?” 

“You’ll never believe it,” she replied, slinging an arm around his waist, “but I got myself another sister.” 

His eyes moved from her to El and back again, his face breaking out into a smile. 

“Happy to hear it,” he said, kissing her briefly before pushing her into the house after the boys. 

* * *

It was cold in the new house at night, and she supposed it should be. 

She tried to burrow herself deeper into the blankets on her makeshift cot on the floor in El’s room as her mind kept drifting. 

The trees outside were brushing against the side of the house and she wished the sound could ease her to sleep but every time she closed her eyes she could see a gaping mouth with rows of teeth lowering down to latch onto her. It sent a cold sweat up her spine and so she settled for trying to pick shapes out of the popcorn ceiling of El’s bedroom and avoiding the Ralph Maggio poster staring down at her from the wall. 

Mike was in Will’s room, sleeping there while they visited, the two thick as thieves again after various teenage spats they’d had over the years. 

She was starting to get used to being around groups of friends again. She’d made more friends, putting effort into getting to know Allie and Stacey again, going shopping as long as they avoided Starcout and watching stupid romcoms on Friday nights. It’d been almost necessary, with her normal Friday night date buddy being hundreds of miles away living a life without her. 

The back of her heart still ached for Barb. For a while, she’d had Steve and then Jonathan and then Steve without Jonathan again and it still didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t the same as how Max and El were, giggling over the latest copy of _ Teen Beat _ and gossiping about who kissed whom at the latest dance. 

Barb had left a gaping hole where a best friend was supposed to be. 

Nancy rolled onto her back towards the atrocious ceiling again and tried not to think about Jonathan down the hall, sleepy and cozy in a henley, his arms wrapped around his pillow as he dozed on his stomach. 

It was too easy, having him this close, and too hard, to not slowly open the door of El’s room, creep down the hall and slowly open the door of his. Nobody would realistically know and even more realistically, there’d be no consequences if she could fully and honestly convince Joyce that nothing had happened. 

There was another reality that if she went into his room and snuck into his bed, something would definitely happen and then she’d be screwed. 

She huffed with a sigh and punched her pillow slightly, turning back over onto her side. 

The draw became too much and she couldn’t resist the urge anymore. 

She opened the door and there he was, standing in front of her in a sweatshirt and PJ pants, shivering against the cold house. 

She grinned and closed the door gently behind her as he leaned in to kiss her, cupping her face gently.

“We’re pathetic,” she laughed softly, her voice barely a whisper. 

“Oh well,” he chuckled, kissing her again. 

“Can I come into your room?” she whispered, her voice even quieter this time.

“I’ll give you anything you want, Nancy Wheeler,” he laughed, closing the door gently behind her.

* * *

On Sunday, Jonathan dragged her into the front seat of his car and took her to all his favorite places in his new hometown. 

They drove past where Joyce worked, by Jonathan and Will’s school. They tried to get onto the football field, but it was locked, the chainlinks securely fastened against extracurricular visitors. There was a diner downtown with worn-out seats that she found charmingly nostalgic in a Danny and Sandy sort of way and she grinned happily when Jonathan jokingly handed her a quarter to put into the jukebox in the corner.

She shuffled through the songs and settled on Duran Duran. When she got back to Jonathan, he was smiling into the serving of fries they were sharing.

“You know the last time I probably heard this song?” Jonathan asked with a smile.

“How on earth would I know that?” she teased. 

“Remember that Halloween party Junior year? 

The thought of that night brought back a rush of memories and nausea. She’d woken up at 4 in the morning, completely unaware of how she’d gotten home and absolutely clueless on why she had wound up in her own bed instead of Steve’s. 

She’d gotten too drunk, trying to drown Barb’s decaying body and her parent’s grief, the shrine they’d made for their daughter in the living room while the clock ticked and they came no closer to the truth.

She’d wanted so desperately to forget, to forget the person she was before Barb disappeared, the person who cared about what shirt the guy she was hooking up with would like more. She tried to ignore all the ways that she and Steve were wrong for each other, all the ways that she’d fallen out of love with him while he tried to live a normal life and she kept being dragged back to the past. 

“I was dumb back then, huh?” she said lowly, stirring the straw around in her milkshake. 

“I was dumber,” he said, bumping her shoulder with his, his shy smile drawing her own out. “We could have been together back then and I couldn’t believe that you liked me like that.”

She thought about it for a moment, all the things that they’d seen and been and where they were now. Every nail that he drove into that baseball bat, every round she’d fired off from a gun, every monster they’d fought and beat together. Every distracted moment in class wondering what he was thinking about on the other side of the room. Every sleepless night since he’d moved, wishing that she could just hear his voice. 

“Yeah,” she smiled sadly.

“I didn’t mean to bum you out,” he said honestly, turning towards her slightly. 

“I know you didn’t, I just…” she swallowed thickly.

He waited for her, like he had always seemed to. 

“It feels like another lifetime,” she admitted quietly, looking around to make sure nobody was listening in on their conversation. “That party. Those… all of it. Not being with you, living that… that lie.” 

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I know what you mean.” 

She smiled and rested her head against his shoulder. 

“At the end of the day,” she said, leaning in to kiss him, “I’m happy things happened the way they did.” 

He smiled at her and her heart warmed from the inside out. “Me too.” 

* * *

Jonathan sat on El’s bed while Nancy packed her bag next to him, moving back and forth between the desk and the duffel bag to make sure she picked up every eyeliner pencil and hair barrette, all four shoes and her favorite pair of jeans.

Behind her, Jonathan sighed and she stilled, waiting for his next sound. 

“This sucks,” he said finally and she smiled sadly despite herself.

“Yeah,” she said, turning around and leaning against the desk as she nodded. “It definitely does.” 

He crossed his arms in front of him. “A lot.” 

She nodded, hating the way emotion choked her voice. 

“We’re still on for Thanksgiving and Christmas though, right?” he asked softly, avoiding her eyes and looking down at the carpet. 

_ Trust issues,_ she heard echoing in her head.

She wanted to squash them all, prove that he can depend on her no matter what, that she’s not going anywhere unless he wants her to. 

She walked to him, standing between his spread legs. His hands went to her hips and she leaned into him, her arms resting on his shoulders. 

“Jonathan Byers,” she said, punctuating each word with a kiss, “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.” 

He nuzzled into her neck, kissing gently along her collar bone, her pulse point, her jaw. 

“Promise?” he whispered, his lips against hers. 

“Promise,” she breathed against him. 

* * *

She looked out of the rearview mirror as she pulled out of the Byer’s new driveway, Joyce standing with her arms around El and Will, Jonathan standing next to them with his hands deep in her pockets. 

She heard Mike sniffle next to her and she found tears in her own eyes, trying to wipe them without him noticing. 

“You’re crying too?” Mike said wetly. 

“Shut up,” Nancy laughed thickly, her bad mood broken instantly.

“Hey, no judgment here,” Mike chuckled, swallowing and looking out the window.

“You gonna be okay?” Nancy asked. 

“Yeah,” Mike nodded, looking back at her. “You gonna be okay, too?”

“Oh yeah,” she replied, gripping the steering wheel and taking a deep breath. "We're gonna be okay."

**Author's Note:**

> I still haven't quite recovered from ST3 in all honesty... and probably not in an entirely good way. We got some great Jonathan/Nancy moments but for the most part, I was disappointed. Anyways, these two lovebirds still have my heart and I'm so thankful they're still canon and I still love them dearly. 
> 
> Anyways — Love it? Hate it? Leave a comment.


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